


to be known and knowing

by cowboylakay



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Thinking, it’s just some thoughts i guess, yes they’re trans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25559326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowboylakay/pseuds/cowboylakay
Summary: They only very rarely get nights where there are no worries plaguing them.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Charles Smith
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	to be known and knowing

He maps the lines of scars, thick and protruding under the pads of his fingers, tracing them from where they seem to begin to where they end. Some of them are larger than the others, older and more defined, while the rest were smaller, less intentional pain and more unfortunate nicks from too-close encounters. His fingers move to a scruffy, scarred cheek, the lightning strike of a glassing incident pulling slightly at his touch. As he traces it, he’s more gentle, more endeared than wondering, like looking at a familiar memento than a foreign curiosity.

Charles is ever so patient with him. He watches Arthur’s expression as he lightly drags his finger across the shape of his facial scars, exhausted from their coupling and drowsily lying about without a care in the world, grizzly brown eyes subdued into a thin ring around the all-consuming black of his pupils as his lips part slightly open. Ensnared, like a rabbit caught hanging from a trap, waiting for it’s eventual demise at the grasp of a seasoned hunter.

He studies Arthur as though he’s never seen him before. The messy splay of his coffee dark hair, the flickering dancing of the campfire outside their shared tent occasionally causing the flecks of ginger and blond in his hair to expose themselves. The way his eyes, the same colour as the turquoise of his beaded necklace and the bogus emerald Arthur had told him he received from a lady animal wrangler, glint in the near-dark, brazenly watching the movements of his fingers. How his thighs bracket his own, seated on his firm belly comfortably yet maintaining a certain balance as to keep from crushing him under his weight.

He remembers a time when Arthur was struggling to regain the lost muscle and strength from when he’d been in Colm’s less-than-gentle care, frustrated at himself and his circumstances. He remembers thinking whether Arthur will ever return to how he was before his capture, bright and happy and affectionate, and compares his thought process then to now. He’d changed, there was no doubt about it, but the days where he wouldn’t speak a word to anyone at camp and just leave in the middle of the night to return the next day vaguely reeking of blood were slowly disappearing, becoming less frequent and being replaced with just spending more time with Charles.

He remembers the feeling of almost losing Arthur, not even three months into their raw, tentative relationship, the fear that choked him and pushed a desperation in him that he’d never experienced before. He remembers the feeling of Arthur’s skin under his hands, the times that he’d be as cold as a corpse or as hot as a train furnace, too cold or too hot to feel right. He remembers the times Hosea looked at him with that grim, devastated expression of his, uncertain whether Arthur would pull through the night. He remembers Dutch taking shelter in his tent, avoiding the tent holding his dying son and pretending as if life could go on. Not even Javier could look Dutch in the eyes during that time.

“Hey,” Arthur says, quietly as though it was a private matter. “You were pretty far away just now.”

Charles nods at him, leaning into his warm, broad,  _living_ hand. “Was just thinking about things, everything that happened.” _To you,_ he doesn’t add. He knows how Arthur feels about being reminded of that, not out of fear of his own pain, but out of anger at how useless he was after the worst had come to pass.

“Yeah?” Arthur hums, and Charles catches the almost imperceptible change in his expression, unnoticeable to anyone not attuned to his body language. “What were you thinking about?”

They still smell of their exertion and their joining, and they really should get dressed unless they want to risk getting robbed or attacked with their utilities out for show, but neither of them seem quite ready to move yet. Charles puts his palms on Arthur’s thighs, squeezing a little to feel the stronger, slightly thicker muscle of the familiar shape of his thighs, powerful in the way riders’ thighs normally were, yet somehow more. If there was any doubt over Arthur’s recovery, Charles had to look no further than the way Arthur had gained back all of that muscle and fat, and even more than that.

Charles smiles a little at Arthur’s question, as the latter’s expression melts a little into something softer. “Nothing to worry about,” He says instead, knowing better than to talk about that time now, in such a comfortable, peaceful environment away from camp, Dutch, Rhodes, and the entirety of the south. “How are you feeling?”

For a moment, Arthur seems to want to bring up what Charles disregarded and deflected from, but he relents just this one time. He stretches his back at the question, hand moving down to Charles’ collarbone yet not letting go, as if he couldn’t resist the contact. “Really good, know I’ll be sore tomorrow especially when I get back on Brandy,” He says, rubbing his lower back a little with his free hand for extra effect. Charles can feel his cheeks pulling to make more space for a wider smile. “Nothin’ I’d change about that though. I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Charles tells him, then reaches up with one of the hands on his thighs to pull him down by the back of his neck. Arthur complies easily, bending down to kiss him with a sweetness so intoxicating to Charles that he can’t believe he’d lived a lifetime without having those slightly chapped, busted-one-too-many-times lips on his own.

They kiss for a little while longer, devoid of that enrapturing heat that lit every nerve in their bodies moments ago, leaving only tender comfort and the giddy, almost teenage-like affection they have for each other. Arthur sighs into his lips, sinking a little deeper until his chest was resting against Charles’ own. Whoever decides to open their tent flap now will be in for a very round, hairy, white surprise.

Charles voices that thought, earning him a peal of laughter from Arthur and a joking slap on his shoulder. Charles grins along with him, kissing the short, scruffy beard hiding his jaw. When they settle down again, Arthur stays lying down on Charles, his slowly but surely healing shoulder resting on Charles’ own firm shoulder.

“What I’d give for every night to be like this,” Arthur says, a solemn note in his tone as he pushes his face into Charles’ neck. Charles hums in agreement, angling his head to make more space for Arthur.

“It’s always an option,” Charles tells him, because it is. He knows no one that mattered in camp would be angry or disappointed if Arthur wanted to leave, especially because of the Colm debacle and the aftermath of it. He knows that there were those who would leave if Arthur leaves, like John and his family, Lenny, Mary-Beth, Tilly, Karen, Javier, with the right reminder. Maybe even Hosea, Sadie, Sean, or even that Kieran kid that Arthur seems to be more kind to nowadays than before. He knows the option is there, if only Arthur would take it.

Arthur’s face shutters slightly, and Charles knows his answer before he even says it. “Charles..” He says, but Charles plants a kiss on his forehead before he could continue.

“I know,” Charles replies, not letting his frustration over that answer bleed into his words. Arthur seems to pick up on it anyways, able to read Charles better than any other person in the world. He smiles apologetically, hand pawing at Charles’ bicep.

“Maybe one day,” Arthur says, and it isn’t that it was a lie, because Charles knows Arthur doesn’t lie to him, but at the same time, Charles knows Arthur’s afraid of considering it deeper than the surface level, afraid that turning his thoughts to this side would somehow get back to Dutch.

Charles smiles at him anyways, knowing his sincerity and knowing that his hesitation and fear isn’t any of his fault. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> just so it’s clear: brandy is the name of arthur’s horse in this, because that’s what i named my horse too
> 
> i’m [lakay](https://cowboylakay.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


End file.
